Zeppelin Dreams

English Touring Opera

Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton

****

NEARLY a hundred years after a massive
German airship bombed part of the Black Country killing 34 people, the
terrifying and almost forgotten event of the First World War has been
marked by the region’s very own community opera.

Billed as a world premiere, it was created in a
special partnership between the English Touring Opera, the Grand Theatre
and the Wolverhampton Music Education Hub, with four ETO members leading
the cast of more than 150 drawn mainly from local schools, the theatre’s
adult group, university students and the handicapped.

Three performance were given, ending on Friday
night, with words of the songs shown on two large television screens
either side of the stage, and shots of the Zeppelin created by
animations and sound from the Azaad Dhol Drummers.

Heading for Liverpool Docks on January 31, 1916,
the airship became lost in fog and instead unleashed its bombs on
Walsall, Tipton, Bradley and Wednesbury, when victims included the
Mayoress of Walsall, Mary Julia Slater.

The opera focuses on sweethearts William and Maud
Fellows (they had the same surname), played by ETO members Casey-Joe
Rumens and Austine Broad, who were killed on the banks of the
Wolverhampton Union Canal, and music was composed by Rachel Leach,
though a couple of numbers from the musical Oh What A lovely War
were used. The Wolverhampton Music Education Hub Orchestra also
contributed.

There was an emotional ending to the opera, with
some of youngsters naming the 34 victims while placing large poppies on
the front of the stage.